Thirty-two years have passed since John Lennon was murdered in front of his New York residence.

He was 40 years old.

Lennon's cult of fame hasn't diminished since Dec. 8, 1980. But as he's remembered, celebrated and mourned this weekend by Beatles fans around the globe, one might also wonder if the world has given up on the sentiment of his anti-war anthem "Give Peace a Chance."

Recorded in a Canadian hotel room in 1969 during Lennon's famous "Bed-In" period with Yoko Ono and accompanied makeshift by '60s luminaries Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsburg and Dick Gregory, "Give Peace a Chance" was the soon-to-be-ex-Beatle's first solo record and a theme of his reinvention.

At the height of the Vietnam War, the slogan served as a rallying cry. Two years later, he reprised the idea with "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and, of course, "Imagine."

When Lennon wrote "Give Peace a Chance," the country had been at war in Vietnam for about four years with no end in sight. U.S. combat casualties topped 40,000, and the war dominated the nightly news.

Today, the country has been at war in the Middle East for more than a decade. Yet in a political year, it was the economy, not war, that dominated the campaign.

"It's terrible. I wish there would be peace," Ono told the New York Daily News in October. She was referring specifically to the U.S. military death toll.

More than 2,000 American troops have died in the war in Afghanistan against al-Qaida forces. U.S. losses in the Iraq war topped 4,400.

With the raging violence in the Gaza Strip; continued deadly clashes in Syria between government forces and anti-government rebels; and Mexico's gruesome drug war claiming tens of thousands just inside and along the U.S. border, it's getting harder to believe that all you need is love.

Ono's approach in 2012 echoes Lennon's tactics in 1969. Her Imagine Peace Project displays various messages in different languages in Times Square. The Lennon Ono Grant for Peace was recently announced for Pussy Riot, Lady Gaga and the late Christopher Hitchens.

Does peace have a chance?

If Lennon were alive today, he might be aghast to see such weariness, inaction and, even worse, indifference.

"I don't think he'd be happy today," said Mark Benson, who's played the Lennon role for 28 years in the touring band 1964 ... The Tribute.

But a 72-year-old Lennon might also be hopeful. Most certainly he'd be dazzled by the technology that makes it harder than ever to turn a blind eye to suffering.

"A lot of times, it's the people who feel helpless in any other way, who hold their phones up to show people what really is going on, so the rest of the world can possibly get involved," Benson said.

For the musician who's been a Beatle way longer than Lennon ever was, "Give Peace a Chance" remains a powerful moral touchstone and perhaps Lennon's most enduring legacy.

"It's such an iconic statement of John Lennon," he said. "It's just so simple, and yet it seems like the hardest thing to do. If we could just say, 'We just want peace.' "

"I do believe that people are still out there demanding and challenging what's going on."

She cites the energy behind the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street as well as touting the role of social media.

"Maybe they're not protesting on the street as much as they are Facebooking. But they're definitely trying to get the word out, so there is resonance in those words," she said.

But Sanchez cautions that anti-war messages can be corrupted. And that's frustrating to peaceniks.

"You've got such a massive pro-war, anti-terrorist sentiment that's been ingrained, especially in folks for the last 20 years," she said, "that I think for them, peace might equal going to war and stopping the so-called terrorists. And that's what's been surprising to me.

"In San Antonio, it's a little hard because of all the military presence. There's a livelihood. People make money from making bombs and having planes that carry military equipment."

That discounts a refrain well-known to military families: Nobody wants peace more than a soldier.

Army chaplain Maj. James Pennington has served in war zones in Iraq and knows that feeling firsthand.

"I would say peace is an ideal," Pennington, 46, a former medic, said. "A lot of people want to go back and forth, between either war and peace. But I would say that we need to say more in terms of degrees of war and degrees of peace.

"I do think that there is evil in the world or, at least, evil people who are up to no good. And we need good people to stand to try and make a difference … it's in our psyche as a people. We want to do the right thing."